Input control assignment

ABSTRACT

Various techniques may be employed for assigning user inputs such as a touch on a touchscreen to various input controls such as buttons or other features provided on a touchscreen. One example input assignment technique is a nearest neighbor technique, whereby a touch may, for example, be assigned to an input control that is positioned closest to the touch location. Another example input assignment technique is an angle and distance technique, whereby a touch may, for example, be assigned to an input control based on an angle and a distance of the touch relative to a prior touch.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/803,607 filed on Jul. 20, 2015, which is a continuation of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 14/134,429 filed on Dec. 19, 2013, nowissued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,086,759, the disclosures of which are herebyincorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

BACKGROUND

As content items such as video games continue to become increasinglypopular and widespread, a number of new and sophisticated techniqueshave evolved for providing user input for participation with the contentitems. One such technique involves the use of a virtual gamepad, whichrefers to software that provides buttons and other input controls ontouchscreen devices such as smart phones and tablets. As an example, insome cases, a virtual gamepad may be executed on a touchscreen devicethat sends inputs to a video game that is displayed on a separatedisplay device such as a television. In this example, a player may, insome cases, be watching the displayed video game on the television whilesimultaneously holding the touchscreen and attempting to touch controlson the touchscreen without looking at the touchscreen. The player may,for example, continue to look at the television for almost all of a gameplaying session and may only have time to look down at the virtualgamepad during breaks or pauses in game action, which may occurinfrequently.

One problem associated with the use of virtual gamepads is thattouchscreens are flat surfaces that may provide minimal, if any, tactilefeedback to users. For example, traditional gamepads typically includecontrols that may be raised and/or lowered with respect to the mainsurface of the gamepad and may be separated by grooves or other spacesfrom the main surface of the gamepad. By contrast, touchscreenstypically include a continuous flat surface on which buttons and otherinput controls may, for example, be visually indicated. Thus, users of avirtual gamepads may have difficulty properly selecting intended inputcontrols, for example, when they are not looking at the input controls.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

The following detailed description may be better understood when read inconjunction with the appended drawings. For the purposes ofillustration, there are shown in the drawings example embodiments ofvarious aspects of the disclosure; however, the invention is not limitedto the specific methods and instrumentalities disclosed.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example computing system that may beused in some embodiments.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example computing system that may beused in some embodiments.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example virtual gamepadconfiguration in accordance with the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example nearest neighbor techniqueconfiguration in accordance with the present disclosure.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating example angle and distance informationin accordance with the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a first example angle and distancetechnique scenario in accordance with the present disclosure.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a second example angle and distancetechnique scenario in accordance with the present disclosure.

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example excessive drift scenario inaccordance with the present disclosure.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart depicting an example angle and distance techniqueprocedure in accordance with the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Techniques for input control assignment are disclosed herein. Inparticular, in some cases, various techniques may be employed forassigning user inputs such as a touch on a touchscreen to various inputcontrols such as buttons or other features provided on a touchscreen.One example input assignment technique is a nearest neighbor technique,whereby a touch may, for example, be assigned to an input control thatis positioned closest to the touch location. Another example inputassignment technique is an angle and distance technique, whereby a touchmay, for example, be assigned to an input control based on an angle anda distance of the touch relative to a prior touch.

In some cases, to assist with performance of the angle and distancetechniques, angle and distance information associated with one or moreinput controls may be maintained. More specifically, for one or morespecified angles or range of angles, the maintained information mayindicate various distance ranges. For example, a distance rangecorresponding to a first input control may indicate a range within whichit assumed that a user touch is intended for the first input control,while a distance range corresponding to a second input control mayindicate a range within which it is assumed that a user touch isintended for the second input control.

In some example implementations of the angle and distance techniques, afirst touch may be detected at a first screen location and assigned to afirst input control. An indication of the first screen location and anindication of the assignment of the first touch to the first inputcontrol may be at least temporarily maintained. A second touch may thenbe detected at a second screen location. Upon detection of the secondtouch, both an angle and a distance may be calculated for the secondscreen location relative to the first screen location. One or moredistance ranges associated with the calculated angle may then beidentified, for example, based on maintained angle and distanceinformation. It may then be determined which of the identified distanceranges includes the calculated distance. If, for example, the calculateddistance is within a distance range corresponding to the first inputcontrol, then the user touch may be assigned to the first input control.If, for example, the calculated distance is within a distance rangecorresponding to a second input control, then the user touch may beassigned to the second input control.

In some cases, the input assignment techniques disclosed herein may beemployed in connection with user input associated with video games orother content items. Such content items may sometimes be transmittedfrom a content provider or another central location to one or moreclient devices using an electronic network such as the Internet. In somecases, the content items may be delivered to and presented by the clientdevices using streaming media technology. Also, in some cases, thecontent items may be rendered by the content provider prior to beingtransmitted and delivered to the client devices. An example computingenvironment that enables rendering and transmission of content toclients will now be described in detail. In particular, FIG. 1illustrates an example computing environment in which the embodimentsdescribed herein may be implemented. FIG. 1 is a diagram schematicallyillustrating an example of a data center 210 that can provide computingresources to users 200 a and 200 b (which may be referred hereinsingularly as user 200 or in the plural as users 200) via user computers202 a and 202 b (which may be referred herein singularly as computer 202or in the plural as computers 202) via a communications network 230.Data center 210 may be configured to provide computing resources forexecuting applications on a permanent or an as-needed basis. Thecomputing resources provided by data center 210 may include varioustypes of resources, such as gateway resources, load balancing resources,routing resources, networking resources, computing resources, volatileand non-volatile memory resources, content delivery resources, dataprocessing resources, data storage resources, data communicationresources and the like. Each type of computing resource may begeneral-purpose or may be available in a number of specificconfigurations. For example, data processing resources may be availableas virtual machine instances that may be configured to provide variousweb services. In addition, combinations of resources may be madeavailable via a network and may be configured as one or more webservices. The instances may be configured to execute applications,including web services, such as application services, media services,database services, processing services, gateway services, storageservices, routing services, security services, encryption services, loadbalancing services, application services and the like. These servicesmay be configurable with set or custom applications and may beconfigurable in size, execution, cost, latency, type, duration,accessibility and in any other dimension. These web services may beconfigured as available infrastructure for one or more clients and caninclude one or more applications configured as a platform or as softwarefor one or more clients. These web services may be made available viaone or more communications protocols. These communications protocols mayinclude, for example, hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) or non-HTTPprotocols. These communications protocols may also include, for example,more reliable transport layer protocols, such as transmission controlprotocol (TCP), and less reliable transport layer protocols, such asuser datagram protocol (UDP). Data storage resources may include filestorage devices, block storage devices and the like.

Each type or configuration of computing resource may be available indifferent sizes, such as large resources—consisting of many processors,large amounts of memory and/or large storage capacity—and smallresources—consisting of fewer processors, smaller amounts of memoryand/or smaller storage capacity. Customers may choose to allocate anumber of small processing resources as web servers and/or one largeprocessing resource as a database server, for example.

Data center 210 may include servers 216 a and 216 b (which may bereferred herein singularly as server 216 or in the plural as servers216) that provide computing resources. These resources may be availableas bare metal resources or as virtual machine instances 218 a-d (whichmay be referred herein singularly as virtual machine instance 218 or inthe plural as virtual machine instances 218). Virtual machine instances218 c and 218 d are input assignment virtual machine (“IAVM”) instances.The IAVM's 218 c and 218 d may be configured to various portions of theinput assignment techniques in accordance with the present disclosureand described in detail below. Also, in some cases, IAVM's 218 c and 218d may be configured to store instructions for performing various inputassignment techniques that may be transmitted to one or more clientdevices. As should be appreciated, while the particular exampleillustrated in FIG. 1 includes one IAVM in each server, this is merelyan example. A server may include more than one IAVM or may not includeany IAVM.

The availability of virtualization technologies for computing hardwarehas afforded benefits for providing large scale computing resources forcustomers and allowing computing resources to be efficiently andsecurely shared between multiple customers. For example, virtualizationtechnologies may allow a physical computing device to be shared amongmultiple users by providing each user with one or more virtual machineinstances hosted by the physical computing device. A virtual machineinstance may be a software emulation of a particular physical computingsystem that acts as a distinct logical computing system. Such a virtualmachine instance provides isolation among multiple operating systemssharing a given physical computing resource. Furthermore, somevirtualization technologies may provide virtual resources that span oneor more physical resources, such as a single virtual machine instancewith multiple virtual processors that span multiple distinct physicalcomputing systems.

Referring to FIG. 1, communications network 230 may, for example, be apublicly accessible network of linked networks and possibly operated byvarious distinct parties, such as the Internet. In other embodiments,communications network 230 may be a private network, such as a corporateor university network that is wholly or partially inaccessible tonon-privileged users. In still other embodiments, communications network230 may include one or more private networks with access to and/or fromthe Internet.

Communication network 230 may provide access to computers 202. Usercomputers 202 may be computers utilized by users 200 or other customersof data center 210. For instance, user computer 202 a or 202 b may be aserver, a desktop or laptop personal computer, a tablet computer, awireless telephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), an e-bookreader, a game console, a set-top box or any other computing devicecapable of accessing data center 210. User computer 202 a or 202 b mayconnect directly to the Internet (e.g., via a cable modem or a DigitalSubscriber Line (DSL)). Although only two user computers 202 a and 202 bare depicted, it should be appreciated that there may be multiple usercomputers.

User computers 202 may also be utilized to configure aspects of thecomputing resources provided by data center 210. In this regard, datacenter 210 might provide a gateway or web interface through whichaspects of its operation may be configured through the use of a webbrowser application program executing on user computer 202. Alternately,a stand-alone application program executing on user computer 202 mightaccess an application programming interface (API) exposed by data center210 for performing the configuration operations. Other mechanisms forconfiguring the operation of various web services available at datacenter 210 might also be utilized.

Servers 216 shown in FIG. 1 may be standard servers configuredappropriately for providing the computing resources described above andmay provide computing resources for executing one or more web servicesand/or applications. In one embodiment, the computing resources may bevirtual machine instances 218. In the example of virtual machineinstances, each of the servers 216 may be configured to execute aninstance manager 220 a or 220 b (which may be referred herein singularlyas instance manager 220 or in the plural as instance managers 220)capable of executing the virtual machine instances 218. The instancemanagers 220 may be a virtual machine monitor (VMM) or another type ofprogram configured to enable the execution of virtual machine instances218 on server 216, for example. As discussed above, each of the virtualmachine instances 218 may be configured to execute all or a portion ofan application.

It should be appreciated that although the embodiments disclosed abovediscuss the context of virtual machine instances, other types ofimplementations can be utilized with the concepts and technologiesdisclosed herein. For example, the embodiments disclosed herein mightalso be utilized with computing systems that do not utilize virtualmachine instances.

In the example data center 210 shown in FIG. 1, a router 214 may beutilized to interconnect the servers 216 a and 216 b. Router 214 mayalso be connected to gateway 240, which is connected to communicationsnetwork 230. Router 214 may be connected to one or more load balancers,and alone or in combination may manage communications within networks indata center 210, for example, by forwarding packets or other datacommunications as appropriate based on characteristics of suchcommunications (e.g., header information including source and/ordestination addresses, protocol identifiers, size, processingrequirements, etc.) and/or the characteristics of the private network(e.g., routes based on network topology, etc.). It will be appreciatedthat, for the sake of simplicity, various aspects of the computingsystems and other devices of this example are illustrated withoutshowing certain conventional details. Additional computing systems andother devices may be interconnected in other embodiments and may beinterconnected in different ways.

In the example data center 210 shown in FIG. 1, a server manager 215 isalso employed to at least in part direct various communications to, fromand/or between servers 216 a and 216 b. While FIG. 1 depicts router 214positioned between gateway 240 and server manager 215, this is merely anexemplary configuration. In some cases, for example, server manager 215may be positioned between gateway 240 and router 214. Server manager 215may, in some cases, examine portions of incoming communications fromuser computers 202 to determine one or more appropriate servers 216 toreceive and/or process the incoming communications. Server manager 215may determine appropriate servers to receive and/or process the incomingcommunications based on factors such as an identity, location or otherattributes associated with user computers 202, a nature of a task withwhich the communications are associated, a priority of a task with whichthe communications are associated, a duration of a task with which thecommunications are associated, a size and/or estimated resource usage ofa task with which the communications are associated and many otherfactors. Server manager 215 may, for example, collect or otherwise haveaccess to state information and other information associated withvarious tasks in order to, for example, assist in managingcommunications and other operations associated with such tasks.

It should be appreciated that the network topology illustrated in FIG. 1has been greatly simplified and that many more networks and networkingdevices may be utilized to interconnect the various computing systemsdisclosed herein. These network topologies and devices should beapparent to those skilled in the art.

It should also be appreciated that data center 210 described in FIG. 1is merely illustrative and that other implementations might be utilized.Additionally, it should be appreciated that the functionality disclosedherein might be implemented in software, hardware or a combination ofsoftware and hardware. Other implementations should be apparent to thoseskilled in the art. It should also be appreciated that a server, gatewayor other computing device may comprise any combination of hardware orsoftware that can interact and perform the described types offunctionality, including without limitation desktop or other computers,database servers, network storage devices and other network devices,PDAs, tablets, cellphones, wireless phones, pagers, electronicorganizers, Internet appliances, television-based systems (e.g., usingset top boxes and/or personal/digital video recorders) and various otherconsumer products that include appropriate communication capabilities.In addition, the functionality provided by the illustrated modules mayin some embodiments be combined in fewer modules or distributed inadditional modules. Similarly, in some embodiments the functionality ofsome of the illustrated modules may not be provided and/or otheradditional functionality may be available.

In at least some embodiments, a server that implements a portion or allof one or more of the technologies described herein may include ageneral-purpose computer system that includes or is configured to accessone or more computer-accessible media. FIG. 2 depicts a general-purposecomputer system that includes or is configured to access one or morecomputer-accessible media. In the illustrated embodiment, computingdevice 100 includes one or more processors 10 a, 10 b and/or 10 n (whichmay be referred herein singularly as “a processor 10” or in the pluralas “the processors 10”) coupled to a system memory 20 via aninput/output (I/O) interface 30. Computing device 100 further includes anetwork interface 40 coupled to I/O interface 30.

In various embodiments, computing device 100 may be a uniprocessorsystem including one processor 10 or a multiprocessor system includingseveral processors 10 (e.g., two, four, eight or another suitablenumber). Processors 10 may be any suitable processors capable ofexecuting instructions. For example, in various embodiments, processors10 may be general-purpose or embedded processors implementing any of avariety of instruction set architectures (ISAs), such as the x86,PowerPC, SPARC or MIPS ISAs or any other suitable ISA. In multiprocessorsystems, each of processors 10 may commonly, but not necessarily,implement the same ISA.

System memory 20 may be configured to store instructions and dataaccessible by processor(s) 10. In various embodiments, system memory 20may be implemented using any suitable memory technology, such as staticrandom access memory (SRAM), synchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM),nonvolatile/Flash®-type memory or any other type of memory. In theillustrated embodiment, program instructions and data implementing oneor more desired functions, such as those methods, techniques and datadescribed above, are shown stored within system memory 20 as code 25 anddata 26.

In one embodiment, I/O interface 30 may be configured to coordinate I/Otraffic between processor 10, system memory 20 and any peripherals inthe device, including network interface 40 or other peripheralinterfaces. In some embodiments, I/O interface 30 may perform anynecessary protocol, timing or other data transformations to convert datasignals from one component (e.g., system memory 20) into a formatsuitable for use by another component (e.g., processor 10). In someembodiments, I/O interface 30 may include support for devices attachedthrough various types of peripheral buses, such as a variant of thePeripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus standard or the UniversalSerial Bus (USB) standard, for example. In some embodiments, thefunction of I/O interface 30 may be split into two or more separatecomponents, such as a north bridge and a south bridge, for example.Also, in some embodiments some or all of the functionality of I/Ointerface 30, such as an interface to system memory 20, may beincorporated directly into processor 10.

Network interface 40 may be configured to allow data to be exchangedbetween computing device 100 and other device or devices 60 attached toa network or networks 50, such as other computer systems or devices, forexample. In various embodiments, network interface 40 may supportcommunication via any suitable wired or wireless general data networks,such as types of Ethernet networks, for example. Additionally, networkinterface 40 may support communication via telecommunications/telephonynetworks, such as analog voice networks or digital fiber communicationsnetworks, via storage area networks such as Fibre Channel SANs (storagearea networks) or via any other suitable type of network and/orprotocol.

In some embodiments, system memory 20 may be one embodiment of acomputer-accessible medium configured to store program instructions anddata as described above for implementing embodiments of thecorresponding methods and apparatus. However, in other embodiments,program instructions and/or data may be received, sent or stored upondifferent types of computer-accessible media. Generally speaking, acomputer-accessible medium may include non-transitory storage media ormemory media, such as magnetic or optical media—e.g., disk or DVD/CDcoupled to computing device 100 via I/O interface 30. A non-transitorycomputer-accessible storage medium may also include any volatile ornon-volatile media, such as RAM (e.g. SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, RDRAM, SRAM,etc.), ROM (read only memory) etc., that may be included in someembodiments of computing device 100 as system memory 20 or another typeof memory. Further, a computer-accessible medium may includetransmission media or signals such as electrical, electromagnetic ordigital signals conveyed via a communication medium, such as a networkand/or a wireless link, such as those that may be implemented vianetwork interface 40. Portions or all of multiple computing devices,such as those illustrated in FIG. 2, may be used to implement thedescribed functionality in various embodiments; for example, softwarecomponents running on a variety of different devices and servers maycollaborate to provide the functionality. In some embodiments, portionsof the described functionality may be implemented using storage devices,network devices or special-purpose computer systems, in addition to orinstead of being implemented using general-purpose computer systems. Theterm “computing device,” as used herein, refers to at least all thesetypes of devices and is not limited to these types of devices.

A compute node, which may be referred to also as a computing node, maybe implemented on a wide variety of computing environments, such ascommodity-hardware computers, virtual machines, web services, computingclusters and computing appliances. Any of these computing devices orenvironments may, for convenience, be described as compute nodes.

A network set up by an entity, such as a company or a public sectororganization, to provide one or more web services (such as various typesof cloud-based computing or storage) accessible via the Internet and/orother networks to a distributed set of clients may be termed a providernetwork. Such a provider network may include numerous data centershosting various resource pools, such as collections of physical and/orvirtualized computer servers, storage devices, networking equipment andthe like, needed to implement and distribute the infrastructure and webservices offered by the provider network. The resources may in someembodiments be offered to clients in various units related to the webservice, such as an amount of storage capacity for storage, processingcapability for processing, as instances, as sets of related services andthe like. A virtual computing instance may, for example, comprise one ormore servers with a specified computational capacity (which may bespecified by indicating the type and number of CPUs, the main memorysize and so on) and a specified software stack (e.g., a particularversion of an operating system, which may in turn run on top of ahypervisor).

A number of different types of computing devices may be used singly orin combination to implement the resources of the provider network indifferent embodiments, including general-purpose or special-purposecomputer servers, storage devices, network devices and the like. In someembodiments a client or user may be provided direct access to a resourceinstance, e.g., by giving a user an administrator login and password. Inother embodiments the provider network operator may allow clients tospecify execution requirements for specified client applications andschedule execution of the applications on behalf of the client onexecution platforms (such as application server instances, Java™ virtualmachines (JVMs), general-purpose or special-purpose operating systems,platforms that support various interpreted or compiled programminglanguages such as Ruby, Perl, Python, C, C++ and the like orhigh-performance computing platforms) suitable for the applications,without, for example, requiring the client to access an instance or anexecution platform directly. A given execution platform may utilize oneor more resource instances in some implementations; in otherimplementations, multiple execution platforms may be mapped to a singleresource instance.

In many environments, operators of provider networks that implementdifferent types of virtualized computing, storage and/or othernetwork-accessible functionality may allow customers to reserve orpurchase access to resources in various resource acquisition modes. Thecomputing resource provider may provide facilities for customers toselect and launch the desired computing resources, deploy applicationcomponents to the computing resources and maintain an applicationexecuting in the environment. In addition, the computing resourceprovider may provide further facilities for the customer to quickly andeasily scale up or scale down the numbers and types of resourcesallocated to the application, either manually or through automaticscaling, as demand for or capacity requirements of the applicationchange. The computing resources provided by the computing resourceprovider may be made available in discrete units, which may be referredto as instances. An instance may represent a physical server hardwareplatform, a virtual machine instance executing on a server or somecombination of the two. Various types and configurations of instancesmay be made available, including different sizes of resources executingdifferent operating systems (OS) and/or hypervisors, and with variousinstalled software applications, runtimes and the like. Instances mayfurther be available in specific availability zones, representing alogical region, a fault tolerant region, a data center or othergeographic location of the underlying computing hardware, for example.Instances may be copied within an availability zone or acrossavailability zones to improve the redundancy of the instance, andinstances may be migrated within a particular availability zone oracross availability zones. As one example, the latency for clientcommunications with a particular server in an availability zone may beless than the latency for client communications with a different server.As such, an instance may be migrated from the higher latency server tothe lower latency server to improve the overall client experience.

In some embodiments the provider network may be organized into aplurality of geographical regions, and each region may include one ormore availability zones. An availability zone (which may also bereferred to as an availability container) in turn may comprise one ormore distinct locations or data centers, configured in such a way thatthe resources in a given availability zone may be isolated or insulatedfrom failures in other availability zones. That is, a failure in oneavailability zone may not be expected to result in a failure in anyother availability zone. Thus, the availability profile of a resourceinstance is intended to be independent of the availability profile of aresource instance in a different availability zone. Clients may be ableto protect their applications from failures at a single location bylaunching multiple application instances in respective availabilityzones. At the same time, in some implementations inexpensive and lowlatency network connectivity may be provided between resource instancesthat reside within the same geographical region (and networktransmissions between resources of the same availability zone may beeven faster).

The term content, as used herein, refers to any presentable information,and the term content item, as used herein, refers to any collection ofany such presentable information. A content provider may, for example,provide one or more content providing services for providing content toclients. The content providing services may reside on one or moreservers. The content providing services may be scalable to meet thedemands of one or more customers and may increase or decrease incapability based on the number and type of incoming client requests.Portions of content providing services may also be migrated to be placedin positions of reduced latency with requesting clients.

As set forth above, in some cases, content items such as video games mayreceive user input through a virtual gamepad, which refers to softwarethat provides buttons and other input controls on touchscreen devicessuch as smart phones and tablets. The term input control, as usedherein, refers to an area of a screen that, at least temporarily, may beselected or otherwise interacted with to control a computing system. Insome cases, an input control may be, for example, a displayed objectsuch as a button, a knob, a slider, a direction wheel, a bar, an arrow,a handle and the like. Also, in some cases, an input control may be, forexample, a defined screen area that does not include a displayed object.A diagram illustrating an example virtual gamepad configuration inaccordance with the present disclosure is shown in FIG. 3. As shown inFIG. 3, touchscreen 300 includes input controls A, B, X and Y, which arebuttons. As should be appreciated, in some cases, input controls A, B, Xand Y may be displayed only temporarily or may not be displayed at all.

While FIG. 3 displays four input controls in a diamond-shapedconfiguration, a virtual gamepad in accordance with the disclosedtechniques may include any number of input controls arranged in anyappropriate configuration. Additionally, while the input controls shownin FIG. 3 are labeled with letters, an input control may be labeled withany desired identifier or, in some cases, may not be labeled with anyidentifier. For example, in some cases, an input control may bedisplayed in the shape of an arrow that suggests or indicates thefunction of the control (e.g., an input control shaped as an up arrowmay suggest that the input control may be used for moving upwards).

In some cases, an input control may be displayed such that it appears tooverlay content or other displayed information. Also, in some cases, allor various portions of an input control may be transparent or otherwisenot displayed. For example, an input control may be displayed as acircle with an outer border that is visible and with the interior of thecircle being transparent. As another example, an input control may be adefined area of a touchscreen that is not displayed. Furthermore, insome cases, an input control or portions of an input control may bepartially transparent and/or translucent. In such cases, both the inputcontrol and content or other information that appears to be overlaid bythe input control may be at least partially visible. Additionally, insome cases, an input control or portions of an input control may bedisplayed intermittently. In such cases, the input control may bevisible at certain times, while other content or information occupyingthe same screen area may be displayed at other times.

As set forth above, in some cases, a content item such as a video gamemay be displayed on a separate device that is different from the devicethat provides the virtual gamepad input controls. For example, as alsoset forth above, a virtual gamepad may be executed on a touchscreendevice that sends inputs to a video game that is displayed on a separatedisplay device such as a television.

Additionally, in some cases, a virtual gamepad may provide inputcontrols on the same device on which an associated content item isdisplayed. In some example scenarios, input controls may be displayed ona different portion of a screen from the associated content item. As anexample, a content item may be displayed on a top left portion ofscreen, while associated input controls may be displayed on a bottomright portion of the screen. By contrast, in some other examplescenarios, the input controls may be displayed on the same portion of ascreen as at least a portion of an associated content item. In suchcases, the input controls may sometimes appear to overlay portions ofthe displayed content item. In order to better display the content item,all or portions of the overlaying input controls may sometimes appear tobe transparent, partially transparent, translucent and/or may bedisplayed intermittently as set forth above.

As described above, one problem associated with the use of virtualgamepads is that touchscreens are flat surfaces that may provideminimal, if any, tactile feedback to users. Thus, users of a virtualgamepads may have difficulty selecting intended input controls, forexample, when they are not looking at the input controls. In orderreduce these and other problems associated with input controls, a numberof techniques for input control assignment are disclosed herein. Inparticular, in some cases, various techniques may be employed forassigning user inputs such as a touch on a touchscreen to various inputcontrols such as buttons or other features provided on a touchscreen.

One example input assignment technique disclosed herein is referred toas a nearest neighbor technique. In the nearest neighbor technique, whena user touches a screen location outside of any input control, the touchmay be assigned to an input control that is positioned closest to thetouch location. FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example nearestneighbor technique configuration in accordance with the presentdisclosure. FIG. 4 shows the same four input control configurationdepicted previously in FIG. 3, which includes input controls A, B, X andY. FIG. 4 also shows four respective touch zones 400A, 400B, 400X and400Y. In particular, a touch anywhere inside of touch zone 400A will beassigned to input control A, a touch anywhere inside of touch zone 400Bwill be assigned to input control B, a touch anywhere inside of touchzone 400X will be assigned to input control X and a touch anywhereinside of touch zone 400Y will be assigned to input control Y.

As shown in FIG. 4, each touch zone 400A, 400B, 400X and 400Y isconfigured such that any touch detected within the touch zone will becloser to its respective input control than to any other input controlin an associated set of input controls (input controls A, B, X and Yform an associated set of input controls In the example of FIG. 4). Inparticular, touch zone 400A is configured such that a touch occurring intouch zone 400A is closer to input control A than to input controls B, Xor Y. Touch zone 400B is configured such that a touch occurring in touchzone 400B is closer to input control B than to input controls A, X or Y.Touch zone 400X is configured such that a touch occurring in touch zone400X is closer to input control X than to input controls A, B or Y.Touch zone 400Y is configured such that a touch occurring in touch zone400Y is closer to input control Y than to input controls A, B or X.

As should be appreciated, touch zones 400A, 400B, 400X and 400Y areshown in FIG. 4 for descriptive purposes and need not necessarily bedisplayed on an actual touchscreen. A detected touch that is outside oftouch zones 400A, 400B, 400X and 400Y may, for example, be ignored ormay possibly be assigned to other input controls not shown in FIG. 4.While example touch zones 400A, 400B, 400X and 400Y have equal sizes,there is no requirement that all touch zones employed in accordance witha set of input controls must necessarily be of equal sizes. For example,if an input control is positioned at the immediate edge of atouchscreen, then its corresponding touch zone may be effectively“cut-off” by the edge of the touchscreen and may be smaller than othertouch zones for other input controls that may be positioned closer tothe center of a touchscreen.

Another example input assignment technique disclosed herein is referredto as an angle and distance technique. As set forth above, in the angleand distance technique, angle and distance information may be maintainedfor one or more associated input controls on a virtual gamepad. Morespecifically, for one or more specified angles or range of angles, themaintained information may indicate various distance ranges. Forexample, a distance range corresponding to a first input control mayindicate a range within which it assumed that a user touch is intendedfor the first input control, while a distance range corresponding to asecond input control may indicate a range within which it is assumedthat a user touch is intended for the second input control.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating example angle and distance informationin accordance with the present disclosure. In particular, FIG. 5 depictsa touchscreen portion 500 including controls A, B, X and Y. Points CA,CB, CX and CY indicate the center points of input controls A, B, X andY, respectively. Line 501 is a straight line bisecting an area betweeninput controls Y and B and also bisecting an area between input controlsX and A. Point K represents a point on line 501 at the shortest distancebetween line 501 and input controls A and X. The distance between thecenter point of input control A and point K (i.e., distance CA-K) isequal to the distance between the center point of input control X andpoint K (i.e., distance CX-K). Line 502 is a straight line bisecting anarea between input controls A and B and also bisecting an area betweeninput controls X and Y. Point Q represents a point on line 502 at theshortest distance between line 501 and input controls A and B. Thedistance between the center point of input control A and point Q (i.e.,distance CA-Q) is equal to the distance between the center point ofinput control B and point Q (i.e., distance CB-Q).

Chart 520 shows some example angle and distance information for inputcontrol A. In particular, column 521 specifies some selected anglesassociated with input control A. Column 522 lists input control Adistance ranges, which are ranges of distances within which it isassumed that a touch is assigned to input control A. Column 523 listsinput control X distance ranges, which are ranges of distances withinwhich it is assumed that a touch is assigned to input control X. Column524 lists input control Y distance ranges, which are ranges of distanceswithin which it is assumed that a touch is assigned to input control Y.Column 525 lists input control B distance ranges, which are ranges ofdistances within which it is assumed that a touch is assigned to inputcontrol B. Angle and distance information such as the information shownin chart 520 may, for example, be stored in memory of a touchscreendevice and/or any number of other devices.

It is noted that the distance ranges shown in chart 520 represent arange of distances in relation to points shown in FIG. 5. For example,distance range 0 to CA-J represents a range of distances from zero todistance CA-J (i.e., the distance between point CA and point J). Asanother example, the distance range CA-J to CA-S represents a range ofdistances from distance CA-J (i.e., the distance between point CA andpoint J) to distance CA-S (i.e., the distance between point CA and pointS). The distance ranges are expressed in this manner in chart 520 merelyfor descriptive purposes to clarify, to a reader of this disclosure, thedistances in relation to points shown in FIG. 5. In practice, thedistance information stored by an actual touchscreen device may, in somecases, include actual numeric values expressed in units such as inchesor millimeters and the like. Moreover, it is noted that the points andlines sown in FIG. 5 are displayed for descriptive purposes to readersof this disclosure and need not necessarily be displayed by an actualtouchscreen device.

Chart 520 only specifies seven example angles shown in the seven rows ofthe chart. However, as should be appreciated, chart 520 may, in somecases, constitute a less than complete portion of the total angle anddistance information that is maintained for input control A. In somecases, distance ranges may be specified for fewer or additional angles,fractions of angles and/or ranges of angles not shown in chart 520.While each row of example chart 520 indicates distance ranges for asingle angle, distance ranges may also be indicated for ranges ofmultiple angles. For example, distance ranges could be indicated forangle ranges such as 90-134 degrees, 135-179 degrees, 180-224 degreesand 225-179 degrees. Additionally, it is noted that example chart 520 isarranged with angle column 521 as a key column, with the values in theremaining columns 522-525 being dependent upon the value in angle column521. However, chart 520 is merely an example arrangement. Angle anddistance information in accordance with the disclosed techniques may bearranged in a variety of other appropriate manners. For example, inanother arrangement, distance ranges could be used as a key column, withthe values in an angle column and/or other columns being dependent uponthe distance range key column. Moreover, there is no requirement thatangle and distance information be specified in a chart, table and/orrelational format. Rather, angle and distance information may bespecified and maintained in any appropriate format.

In the particular example of FIG. 5, the distance ranges in chart 520are based, at least in part, upon bisecting lines 501 and/or 502.However, there is no requirement that distance ranges begin and/or endat points that are equidistant to the center points of different inputcontrols. For example, in an alternative configuration, each inputcontrol a distance range may extend to an end point (i.e., furthestdistance) that is not equidistant from both point CA and point CX, CY orCB.

More specifically, in some cases, the input control A distance rangesmay be set such that they extend to end points that are closer to inputcontrol A than to other input controls (in this case, input controls B,X and Y), while, in other cases, the input control A threshold distancesmay be set such that they extend to end points that are further frominput control A than from other input controls. For example, in oneexample arrangement, for angles less than 180 degrees, the input controlA distance ranges may be set such that they extend to end points thatare closer to point CA than to point CX, while, for angles greater than180 degrees, the input control A distance ranges may be set such thatthey extend to end points that are further from point CA than from pointCB.

In another example arrangement, for angles between 90 degrees and 135degrees, the input control A distance ranges may be set such that theyextend to end points that are closer to point CA than to point CX. Bycontrast, for angles between 135 degrees and 180 degrees, the inputcontrol A distance ranges may be set such that they extend to end pointsthat are further from point CA than from point CX.

In the particular example of chart 520, each of the distance rangesbegins and/or ends at a distance that borders another distance range.For example, the distance range 0 to CA-J ends at distance CA-J, whilethe distance range CA-J to CA-S begins at distance CA-J. It is notedthat the beginning and/or end of each distance range is not necessarilymeant to include an exact precise distance. For example, in practice,the distance range 0 to CA-J may end at a distance that is very slightlyless than distance CA-J, while distance range CA-J to CA-S may begin ata distance that is very slightly greater than distance CA-J.

Additionally, there is no requirement that each distance range must beconfigured such that it begins or ends at a distance that borders or isclose to bordering another distance range. For example, in some cases,there may be a gap between the start point of each input control Xdistance range and a respective endpoint of an input control A distancerange. A gap between two distance ranges may include any desired size orshape. In some cases, a gap between two input control distance rangesmay be defined as its own respective gap distance range. For example agap distance range may start at the end of an input control A distancerange and end at the start of an input control X distance range. In somecases, it may be assumed that touches occurring within a gap distancerange are not intended for any input control. Thus, in some cases,touches occurring within a gap distance range may be ignored such thatthey are not assigned to any input control.

Thus, as set forth above, angle and distance information may bemaintained for one or more input controls on a virtual gamepad. As alsoset forth above, the angle and distance information may indicaterespective distance ranges associated with various angles or ranges ofangles. Some example techniques for using the maintained angle anddistance information to assign a user input to an input control will nowbe described in detail. In particular, as set forth above, in someexample implementations of the angle and distance techniques, a firsttouch may be detected at a first screen location and assigned to a firstinput control. An indication of the first screen location and anindication of the assignment of the first touch to the first inputcontrol may be at least temporarily maintained. A second touch may thenbe detected at a second screen location. Upon detection of the secondtouch, both an angle and a distance may be calculated for the secondscreen location relative to the first screen location. One or moredistance ranges associated with the calculated angle may then beidentified, for example, based on maintained angle and distanceinformation. It may then be determined which of the identified distanceranges includes the calculated distance. If, for example, the calculateddistance is within a distance range corresponding to the first inputcontrol, then the user touch may be assigned to the first input control.If, for example, the calculated distance is within a distance rangecorresponding to a second input control, then the user touch may beassigned to the second input control.

Some example scenarios illustrating the above described example angleand distance application techniques will now be set forth in detail. Inparticular, FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a first example angle anddistance technique scenario in accordance with the present disclosure.As shown in FIG. 6, a first touch is detected at a first screen location(point T1 in FIG. 6) within the boundaries of input control A. As shownin FIG. 6, the first screen location T1 is positioned within alower-left portion of input control A. Because the first screen locationT1 is located inside of input control A, the first touch may be assignedto input control A. An indication of the first screen location T1 and anindication of the assignment of the first touch to input control A maybe at least temporarily maintained. The first screen location T1 may beindicated based on, for example, coordinate values or any otherappropriate value that is capable of indicating a location.

Subsequent to the detection of the first touch, a second touch isdetected at a second screen location (point T2 in FIG. 6). As set forthabove, when using the angle and distance technique, the input control towhich to assign the second touch may be determined based on an angle anddistance of the second screen location T2 relative to the first screenlocation T1. In greater detail, as shown in FIG. 6, the second screenlocation T2 is positioned at a 225 degree angle relative to the firstscreen location T1. The distance between the first screen location T1and the second screen location T2 may also be calculated. For purposesof simplicity to the reader, the distance between the first screenlocation T1 and the second screen location T2 is represented herein bythe following notation: distance T1-T2. As should be appreciated, inpractice, this distance may be calculated as an actual numeric valueexpressed in units such as inches or millimeters and the like.

Upon calculation of the angle and distance of the second screen locationT2 relative to the first screen location T1, the calculated angle anddistance may be compared to maintained angle and distance information.In particular, because the first touch was previously assigned to theinput control A, the calculated angle and distance are compared to angleand distance information associated with input control A. Referring backto FIG. 5, example angle and distance information associated with inputcontrol A is depicted in chart 520 of FIG. 5. In greater detail, thecalculated angle of 225 degrees may be used as a reference value to finda matching value in angle column 521 of chart 520. As shown in FIG. 5,the value of 225 degrees is specified in the sixth row of the chart 520.As also shown in FIG. 5, the sixth row of chart 520 indicates that theangle of 225 degrees is associated with a respective input control Adistance range 0 to CA-Q and a respective input control B distance rangeCA-Q to CA-X.

Accordingly, based on information extracted from chart 520, it may bedetermined that the second touch may be assigned to input control A ifthe distance T1-T2 is within distance range 0 to CA-Q. By contrast, thesecond touch may be assigned to input control B if the distance T1-T2 iswithin the distance range CA-Q to CA-X. Referring back to FIG. 6, box600 indicates that the distance T1-T2 is included within distance rangeCA-Q to CA-X. This can be observed in FIG. 6 by, for example,determining that distance T1-T2 is greater than the distance CA-Q (i.e.,the distance between point CA and point Q) and less than the distanceCA-X (i.e., the distance between point CA and point X). Thus, becausethe calculated distance T1-T2 is included in distance range CA-Q toCA-X, the second touch is assigned to input control B. As should beappreciated, box 600 is depicted in FIG. 6 merely for informationalpurposes to the reader of this disclosure and there is no requirementthat any such box need be displayed by any device employing thedisclosed techniques.

As may be ascertained from the example shown in FIG. 6, the use of thedisclosed angle and distance techniques may sometimes result in adifferent input control assignment as compared to other example inputcontrol assignment techniques. For example, if a nearest neighbortechnique were to be employed for the example of FIG. 6, then this mayresult in the second touch being assigned to input control A. This isbecause, as illustrated in FIG. 6, the second screen location T2 iscloser to input control A than to any of the other input controls B, Xor Y.

Thus, FIG. 6 depicts a first example angle and distance techniquescenario in which a first touch and a second touch are assigned todifferent input controls. A second example angle and distance techniquescenario in accordance with the present disclosure will now be describedwith reference to FIG. 7. In the example, of FIG. 7, the first touch andthe second touch will be assigned to the same input control. Inparticular, as shown in FIG. 7, a first touch is detected at a firstscreen location (point T1 in FIG. 7) within the boundaries of inputcontrol A. As shown in FIG. 7, the first screen location T1 ispositioned within an upper-left portion of input control A. Because thefirst screen location T1 is located inside of input control A, the firsttouch may be assigned to input control A. An indication of the firstscreen location T1 and an indication of the assignment of the firsttouch to input control A may be at least temporarily maintained. Thefirst screen location T1 may be indicated based on, for example,coordinate values or any other appropriate value that is capable ofindicating a location.

Subsequent to the detection of the first touch, a second touch isdetected at a second screen location (point T2 in FIG. 7). As set forthabove, when using the angle and distance technique, the input control towhich to assign the second touch may be determined based on an angle anddistance of the second screen location T2 relative to the first screenlocation T1. In greater detail, as shown in FIG. 7, the second screenlocation T2 is positioned at a 135 degree angle relative to the firstscreen location T1. The distance between the first screen location T1and the second screen location T2 (indicated herein as distance T1-T2)may also be calculated. It is once again noted that, in practice, thisdistance may be calculated as an actual numeric value expressed in unitssuch as inches or millimeters and the like.

Upon calculation of the angle and distance of the second screen locationT2 relative to the first screen location T1, the calculated angle anddistance may be compared to maintained angle and distance information.In particular, because the first touch was previously assigned to theinput control A, the calculated angle and distance are compared to angleand distance information associated with input control A. Referring backto FIG. 5, example angle and distance information associated with inputcontrol A is depicted in chart 520 of FIG. 5. In greater detail, thecalculated angle of 135 degrees may be used as a reference value to finda matching value in angle column 521 of chart 520. As shown in FIG. 5,the value of 135 degrees is specified in the second row of the chart520. As also shown in FIG. 5, the second row of chart 520 indicates thatthe angle of 135 degrees is associated with a respective input control Adistance range 0 to CA-K and a respective input control X distance rangeCA-K to CA-T.

Accordingly, based on information extracted from chart 520, it may bedetermined that the second touch may be assigned to input control A ifthe distance T1-T2 is within the distance range 0 to CA-K. By contrast,the second touch may be assigned to input control X if the distanceT1-T2 is within the distance range CA-K to CA-T. Referring back to FIG.7, box 700 indicates that the distance T1-T2 is included within distancerange 0 to CA-K. This can be observed in FIG. 6 by, for example,determining that distance T1-T2 is greater than zero and less than thedistance CA-K (i.e., the distance from point CA to point K). Thus,because the calculated distance T1-T2 is within the distance range 0 toCA-K, the second touch is assigned to input control A. As should beappreciated, box 700 is depicted in FIG. 7 merely for informationalpurposes to the reader of this disclosure and there is no requirementthat any such box need be displayed by any device employing thedisclosed techniques.

As was the case in FIG. 6, the use of the angle and distance techniquein FIG. 7 may result in a different input control assignment as comparedto the use of the nearest neighbor technique. For example, if thenearest neighbor technique were to be employed for the example of FIG.6, then this may result in the second touch being assigned to inputcontrol X. This is because, as illustrated in FIG. 7, the second screenlocation T2 is closer to input control X than to any of the other inputcontrols A, B or Y. It is noted, however, that while the angle anddistance technique and the nearest neighbor technique lead to differentoutcomes in both the examples of FIGS. 6 and 7, there may be many otherexample scenarios in which the angle and distance technique and thenearest neighbor technique may lead to identical outcomes.

In the particular examples depicted in FIGS. 6 and 7, the first screenlocation T1 is positioned within the boundaries of input control A.However, there may be some scenarios in which a first touch is detectedin an area outside of the boundaries of any input control. In thesescenarios, the first touch may be assigned to a respective input controlusing any desired technique. As an example, in some cases, the firsttouch may be assigned based on the nearest neighbor technique describedabove, in which the first touch may be assigned to an input control thatis positioned closest to the first screen location. Other appropriatetechniques may also be employed.

Additionally, while the particular examples depicted in FIGS. 6 and 7depict only two touches (detected respectively at first screen locationT1 and second screen location T2), the angle and distance techniquesdisclosed herein may be persisted over any number of subsequent touches.For example, a third touch may be detected at a third screen location,and the third touch may then be assigned to an input control based on anangle and distance of the third screen location relative to the secondscreen location T2. Moreover, a fourth touch may be detected at a fourthscreen location, and the fourth touch may then be assigned to an inputcontrol based on an angle and distance of the fourth screen locationrelative to the third screen location. Thus, the angle and distancetechnique may, in some cases, result in a cycle of assigning subsequenttouches to input controls based on their position relative to priortouches.

In some cases, however, certain conditions may arise that may cause theabove described assignment cycle to be reset. These conditions arereferred to herein as reset conditions. To illustrate the concept of areset condition, consider an example scenario in which a reset conditionis detected subsequent to detection of a third touch but prior to thedetection of a fourth touch. In this example scenario, the fourth touchwould be assigned to an input control irrespective of an angle anddistance of the fourth screen location relative to the third screenlocation. Rather, the fourth touch may instead be assigned to an inputcontrol based on another technique such as a nearest neighbor technique.After assignment of the fourth touch, the assignment cycle may then beresumed. For example, a fifth touch may be detected at a fifth screenlocation and assigned to an input control based on an angle and distanceof the fifth screen location relative to the fourth screen location.

A variety of different reset conditions may be employed in accordancewith the disclosed techniques. In some cases, a reset condition mayinclude events such as an extended time lapse after detection of a priortouch without detection of a subsequent touch. For example, in somecases, a counting of a threshold time period may be started upon adetection of a prior touch. If an expiration of the threshold timeperiod is reached prior to a detection of a subsequent touch, then anextended time lapse may be detected. Such an extended time lapse betweentouches may, in some cases, suggest that the user has had an opportunityto look down from a separate display device to a virtual gamepad devicethat the user is holding in his or her hands. Also, when a content itemis being displayed on the same device that provides a virtual gamepad,an extended time lapse may, in some cases, suggest that the user has hadan opportunity to shift his or her focus to a portion of the touchscreenon which input controls may be provided. In addition to time lapses,certain events or actions occurring within the context of a video gameor other content item may also trigger a reset condition. For example,in some cases, a stop, pause or loading condition associated with aplayed content item may constitute a reset condition. Also, in somecases, a break or decrease in a level of action associated with a playedcontent item may constitute a reset condition. Additionally, in somecases, attaining a particular level, goal, object, scene or characterdesignation associated with a played content item may constitute a resetcondition.

Some other example reset conditions may include a detection of a touchthat is beyond any distance range that corresponds to any input control.Also, in some cases, a reset condition may include a detection of atouch in an area of a screen that includes a different set of inputcontrols. For example, in some cases, a right side of a touchscreen maydisplay input controls A, B, X and Y such as those shown in FIGS. 3-8,while a left side of the touchscreen may display left arrow and rightarrow buttons. In one example scenario, a first touch may be detected oninput control A, and then a second touch may subsequently be detected onthe left arrow button. In this scenario, the detection of the secondtouch on the left arrow button may constitute a reset condition withrespect to input controls A, B, X and Y.

In some cases, a reset condition may be triggered based on certain usercommands or actions. For example, in some cases, a reset button may bedisplayed on the virtual gamepad, and a reset condition may occur when atouch is detected on the reset button. Also, in some cases, a particularreset gesture such as shaking of the virtual gamepad may be defined, anda reset condition may occur when the reset gesture is detected.Furthermore, an audible spoken command such as the word reset may beused to trigger a reset condition. Additionally, in some cases, a cameramay be employed to track where user's eyes are directed, and a resetcondition may occur, for example, when it is determined that a user haslooked down or otherwise focused on one or more input controls.

Furthermore, in some cases, a reset condition may be triggered based onexcessive drift. As an example, excessive drift may occur, in somecases, when a location of a particular touch is excessively distant froma location of an input control to which the touch may otherwise beassigned. One example scenario in which excessive drift may sometimesoccur is when multiple consecutive touches are assigned to the sameinput control and continue to extend outward from the assigned inputcontrol. A number of techniques may be employed in order to determinewhen an amount of drift has become excessive. In some cases, drift maybe determined to be excessive based on a threshold drift distance from aparticular input control. In greater detail, when a touch is detected atlocation that exceeds the threshold drift distance from an input controlto which the touch would otherwise be assigned, then a reset conditionmay occur.

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example excessive drift scenario inaccordance with the present disclosure. As shown in FIG. 8, inputcontrol A drift threshold 810 (represented as a dashed line to be moreapparent to the reader) represents a threshold distance beyond whichexcessive drift may be determined to occur in relation to input controlA. FIG. 8 also depicts four touches detected at four respective screenlocations. In particular, a first touch is detected at a first screenlocation T1, a second touch is detected at a second screen location T2,a third touch is detected at a third screen location T3 and a fourthtouch is detected at a fourth screen location T4. For purposes ofsimplicity, each touch is detected to be at a 135 degree angle withrespect to the previous touch. The first touch is assigned to inputcontrol A based on the position of the first screen location T1 beinginside of input control A. Referring back to FIG. 5, chart 520 of FIG. 5indicates that, for input control A, the angle of 135 degrees isassociated with a respective input control A distance range 0 to CA-K.Thus, touches subsequent to the first touch will continue to be assignedto input control A provided that their calculated distance relative tothe prior touch is within distance range 0 to CA-K. As shown in box 800,the calculated distance between each of the first three successivetouches (i.e., distance T1-T2, distance T2-T3 and distance T3-T4) areeach determined to be within the distance range 0 to CA-K. Accordingly,the first, second and third touches are each assigned to input controlA.

It is noted, however, that the fourth screen location T4 is positionedbeyond input control A drift threshold 810 with respect to input controlA. Thus, the fourth touch may be determined to constitute an excessiveamount of drift with respect to input control A. As set forth above, insome cases, an excessive amount of drift may constitute a resetcondition. In these cases, the assignment cycle of the four touchesdepicted in FIG. 8 may be reset such that the fourth touch is assignedirrespective of the angle and distance of the fourth screen locationrelative to the third screen location. Accordingly, in some cases,rather than being assigned to input control A, the fourth touch mayinstead be assigned to input control X based on the position of thefourth screen location T4 being inside of input control X.

While the input control A drift threshold depicted in FIG. 8 applies toinput control A, some drift thresholds may be configured such that theyapply to multiple input controls and/or to a set of input controls.There is no requirement that all drift thresholds in accordance with thedisclosed techniques be of any particular shape or extend around all orany particular angles or ranges angles relative to an input control. Forexample, in some cases, a drift threshold may not extend all the wayaround an input control. In some cases, a drift threshold may beprovided for touches extending from the top of an input control but maynot be provided for touches extending from the bottom, left or right ofan input control. Also, in some cases, drift thresholds may extendfurther away from a respective input control at some angles than atother angles with respect to the input control. For example, if aright-side portion of an input control is positioned close to a rightedge of a touchscreen, then, in some cases, a drift threshold for theinput control may extend less far on the right side of the input controlthan on the left side of the input control. In some cases, a driftthreshold may be effectively cut-off by an edge of the touchscreen atcertain sides and/or with respect to an input control.

Even when a particular input control is not close to an edge of thetouchscreen, the input control's drift threshold may nevertheless becut-off when other neighboring or associated input controls arepositioned close to an edge of the touchscreen. In addition to an edgeof the touchscreen, other factors may also influence the size, shape orconfiguration of a drift threshold. For example, a drift threshold maybe configured to prevent drift into areas of a touchscreen that includeother sets of input controls. For example, as set forth above, in somecases, a right side of a touchscreen may display input controls A, B, Xand Y such as those shown in FIGS. 3-8, while a left side of thetouchscreen may display left arrow and right arrow buttons. In thesecases, one or more drift thresholds for the A, B, X and/or Y buttons maybe configured to prevent drift towards the arrow buttons on the leftside of the touchscreen.

Thus, as set forth above, excessive drift and/or a variety of otherdifferent actions or events may trigger a reset condition. As also setforth above, the reset condition may, in some cases, reset an assignmentcycle such that a subsequent touch is assigned irrespective of its angleand distance relative to a previous touch. In addition to resetting theassignment cycle, the detection of a reset condition may also, in somecases, trigger various feedback operations to be performed in order toinform a user that a reset condition has occurred. For example, in somecases, a reset condition may be indicated to a user via an audibleindication such as a tone or other sound or via a visual indication suchas a temporary icon that is displayed within the display of a video gameor other content item.

Thus, a number of example scenarios in which angle and distancetechniques may be employed are set forth in detail above. Some exampleprocedures for performing the disclosed angle and distance techniqueswill now be described in detail. In particular, FIG. 9 is a flowchartdepicting an example angle and distance technique procedure inaccordance with the present disclosure. At operation 908, an assignmentcycle for the angle and distance techniques is initiated or reset. A setforth above, an assignment cycle refers to the process of assigning asubsequent touch to an input control based an angle and distance of thesubsequent touch in relation to a previous touch. As an example, in somecases, an assignment cycle may be initiated when certain input controlsare first displayed on a touchscreen or at the initiation of certainvideo games or other content items. A reset of an assignment cycle maybe triggered, for example, by the detection of a reset condition. Resetconditions are described in detail above and may include, for example, adetermination of excessive drift, activation of a reset button,performance of a reset gesture or other reset command, an extended timelapse without detection of any new touches, and many others.

At operation 910, an initial touch is detected on a touchscreen of adevice that provides input controls such as those shown in FIGS. 3-8.For example, referring back to the scenario depicted in FIG. 8, anexample of operation 910 may include detecting a first touch at thefirst screen location T1 as depicted in FIG. 8. In some cases, theinitial touch may be a first touch that occurs after initiating orresetting of an assignment cycle. Also, in some cases, an initial touchmay be a touch that triggers a reset condition to occur. For example, asdescribed above, when a detected touch triggers an excessive driftdetermination, then a reset condition may occur. In some cases, thetouch that triggered the excessive drift determination may then beconsidered to be an initial touch (thus, operation 910 may sometimes beeffectively performed prior to operation 908 in these scenarios).

At operation 912, the initial touch is assigned to an input control. Forexample, referring back to the scenario depicted in FIG. 8, an exampleof operation 912 may include assigning the first touch to input controlA of FIG. 8. In some cases, such as depicted for T1 in FIG. 8, theinitial touch may be detected at a location that is within theboundaries of an input control. In these cases, the initial touch may,for example, be assigned to the input control within which the touch isdetected. In other cases, the initial touch may be detected at alocation that is not within the boundaries of any input control. Inthese scenarios, any appropriate desired technique may be employed toassign the initial touch to an input control. One such technique is thenearest neighbor technique, which is described in detail above withreference to FIG. 4.

At operation 913, the initial touch is set to be a previous touch forpurposes of input control assignment. Upon performance of operation 913,the initial touch is referred to in following operations as the previoustouch.

At operation 914, the assignment and location of the previous touch arerecorded. For example, referring back to the scenario depicted in FIG.8, operation 914 may include recording an indication of the first screenlocation T1 and an indication of the assignment of the first touch toinput control A. As an example, these indications may be recorded in anysuitable accessible memory storage location.

At operation 916, a new subsequent touch is detected on the touchscreen.For example, referring back to the scenario depicted in FIG. 8, thefirst iteration of operation 916 may include detecting a second touch atthe second screen location T2 of FIG. 8.

At operation 918, an angle and distance of the subsequent touch iscalculated relative to the previous touch. For example, referring backto the scenario depicted in FIG. 8, operation 918 may includecalculating the angle and distance of second screen location T2 relativeto first screen location T1. In greater detail, as shown in FIG. 8, thesecond screen location T2 is positioned at a 135 degree angle relativeto the first screen location T1. The distance between the first screenlocation T1 and the second screen location T2 is expressed as distanceT1-T2. The angle and distance calculations of operation 918 may beperformed, for example, by adding, subtracting or otherwise comparingvarious coordinate values or other values associated with the subsequenttouch relative to the previous touch.

At operation 920, a range of one or more angles is determined thatincludes the angle calculated at operation 918. In some cases, variousranges of one or more angles may be indicated in maintained angle anddistance information. These indicated ranges may, in some cases, besuccessively examined in any desired order until a range that includesthe calculated angle is determined. For example, referring back to FIG.5, chart 520 of depicts example angle and distance informationassociated with input control A. Column 521 of chart 520 indicatesvarious angles. In some cases, values indicated in column 521 may besuccessively examined until a value is determined that includes ormatches the calculated value of 135 degrees. As shown in chart 520, thecalculated angle of 135 degrees is specified in the second row of chart520. Thus, in the particular example of FIG. 5, the calculated angle of135 degrees is included within an angle range of 135 degrees indicatedin the second row of chart 520. As should be appreciated, the anglerange of 135 degrees indicated in the second row of chart 520 consistsof only a single angle. However, angle ranges indicated within angle anddistance information may, in some cases, include multiple angles.

At operation 922, distance ranges associated with the determined anglerange are identified. In some cases, the distance ranges may beidentified based on maintained angle and distance information. Forexample, referring again back to FIG. 5, chart 520 indicates that theangle of 135 degrees is associated with a respective input control Adistance range 0 to CA-K and a respective input control X distance rangeCA-K to CA-T.

At operation 924, a distance range is determined that includes thedistance calculated at operation 918. In some cases, the distance rangesidentified at operation 922 may be successively examined in any desiredorder until a distance range that includes the calculated distance isidentified. For example, referring back to the scenario depicted in FIG.8, box 800 of FIG. 8 indicates that the calculated distance T1-T2 iswithin the input control A distance range 0 to CA-K. Thus, for example,when distance range 0 to CA-K is examined, it may be determined thatdistance range 0 to CA-K includes the calculated distance T1-T2.

At operation 926, the subsequent touch is assigned based on the distancerange determined at operation 924. For example, referring back to thescenario depicted in FIG. 8, because the calculated distance T1-T2 iswithin the input control A distance range 0 to CA-K, the second touch isassigned to input control A.

At operation 928, the subsequent touch is set to be a previous touch forpurposes of input control assignment. Upon performance of operation 928,the subsequent touch is referred to in following operations as theprevious touch.

At operation 930, the record of the assignment and location of theprevious touch is updated to reflect the most recent iteration of theprevious touch. For example, referring back to the scenario depicted inFIG. 8, the first iteration of operation 924 may include recording anindication of the second screen location T2 and an indication of theassignment of the second touch to input control A. As an example, theseindications may be recorded in any suitable accessible memory storagelocation.

Upon performance of operation 930, the procedure loops back to operation916, at which a new subsequent touch is detected. For example, referringback to the scenario depicted in FIG. 8, the second iteration ofoperation 916 may include detecting the third touch at the third screenlocation T3 of FIG. 8. At this point, the third touch may be designatedas the subsequent touch. At the second iteration of operation 918, theangle and distance of the third screen location T3 may be calculatedrelative to the second screen location T2, which results in a calculatedangle of 135 degrees and a calculated distance expressed as distanceT2-T3. At the second iteration of operation 920, the calculated angle of135 degrees may again be determined to be within the angle range of 135degrees indicated in chart 520 of FIG. 5. At the second iteration ofoperation 922, the input control A distance range 0 to CA-K and theinput control X distance range CA-X to CA-T may again be identified asassociated with the angle range of 135 degrees. At the second iterationof operation 924, the distance T2-T3 may be determined to be within theinput control A distance range 0 to CA-K. At the second iteration ofoperation 926, the third touch may be again assigned to input control Abecause the distance T2-T3 is within the input control A distance range0 to CA-K. At the second iteration of operation 928, the third touch maybe set to the previous touch. At the second iteration of operation 930,the record of the assignment and location of the previous touch may beupdated to reflect location T3 and the assignment of the third touch toinput control A. The operation may then again loop back to operation916.

As set forth above, in some cases, a reset condition may be detected atsome point during the procedure of FIG. 9. Such a reset condition maycause the procedure to loop back to operation 908, at which point theprocedure may be restarted. In some cases, a determination of excessivedrift may trigger a reset condition. For example, referring back to thescenario depicted in FIG. 8, the fourth touch detected at screenlocation T4 may be determined to constitute excessive drift if thefourth touch were to be assigned to input control A. Thus, for example,the fourth touch may be considered to trigger a reset condition, atwhich point the fourth touch may be re-designated as an initial touch.In addition to excessive drift, a number of other example resetconditions are described in detail above, including, for example,activation of a reset button, performance of a reset gesture or otherreset command, an extended time lapse without detection of any newtouches, and many others.

In some cases, all operations in the example procedure of FIG. 9 may beperformed by a client device that provides the input controls. In thesecases, instructions for performing the operations of FIG. 9 maysometimes be downloaded by the client from a connected server and/orcontent provider and may also be periodically updated via additionaldownloads. Also, in some cases, the operations depicted in FIG. 9 may beperformed collectively by multiple devices. For example, in some cases,detected location information may be sent to a server or other local orremote connected device that may perform operations such as calculationof distances, comparison of calculated distances to threshold distances,input control assignment and others.

In some cases, angle and distance information may be set or adjustedbased on various factors. One example factor may include informationassociated with a history of observed user interaction with variousinput controls, which is referred to herein as training information. Forexample, over time, it may be observed that the angle and distancetechniques are assigning touches to a particular input control moreoften than expected. In such a scenario, it may sometimes be desirableto reduce the size of a distance range associated with that particularinput control so that fewer touches are assigned to that particularinput control. By contrast, over time, it may be observed that the angleand distance techniques are assigning touches to a particular inputcontrol less often than expected. In such a scenario, it may sometimesbe desirable to increase the size of a distance range associated withthat particular input control so that more touches are assigned to thatparticular input control.

As another example, over time, it may be observed that the angle anddistance techniques are assigning touches to a particular input controlon unanticipated occasions that may not make sense within the context ifa user experience. For example, it may be observed that a down arrowbutton is being consistently selected even after users have alreadynavigated to the bottom ends of various menus or other interfaces. Insuch a scenario, it may sometimes be desirable to reduce the size of adistance range associated with that down arrow button so that fewertouches are assigned to the down arrow button. Also, in some cases, adrift threshold distance associated with the down arrow button could bereduced such that fewer repeated touches are assigned to the down arrowbutton.

As yet another example, it may be observed that the angle and distancetechniques are assigning touches to a gap distance range between twoinput control distance ranges more often than expected. In such ascenario, it may sometimes be desirable to eliminate or reduce the sizeof the gap distance range such that more touches are assigned to inputcontrols on one or both sides of the gap distance range.

Any or all of the distance range adjustments described above, may bemade across any combination of one or more different angles and/orranges of angles with respect to one or more particular input controls.Furthermore, in addition to setting or adjusting of distance ranges, oneor more ranges of angles may also be set or adjusted based on variousfactors. For example, consider the scenario in which angle and distanceinformation originally specifies various threshold distances for anangle range of 90-109 degrees with respect to a particular inputcontrol. Suppose that, over time, it is determined that user touchesfrom 90-99 degrees are consistently detected at drastically differentdistance ranges in comparison to user touches from 100-109 degrees. Insuch a scenario, it may sometimes be desirable to divide the originalangle range of 99-109 into two different ranges (for example, 90-99degrees and 100-109 degrees) such that different distance ranges may beassociated with 90-99 degrees in comparison 100-109 degrees.

In some cases, data associated with physical, demographic and othercharacteristics associated with various users may be collected. Forexample, information may be collected associated with usercharacteristics such as ages, genders, hand sizes, finger sizes, palmsizes and many others. For example, users may have their hand sizesmeasured by a touchscreen device and/or may provide information via aquestionnaire provided by a touchscreen device or other appropriatetechnique. This collected information may then be used to set or adjustangle and distance information. For example, in some cases, it may bedetermined that an increased amount of children and younger users haverecently begun to interact with a particular set of input controls. Insuch cases, it may be assumed that children and younger users tend tohave smaller hand sizes than older users. In these scenarios, it maysometimes be desirable to adjust various distance ranges to account forsmaller hand sizes. For example, in some cases, angle and distanceinformation for a particular input control may be adjusted by decreasinga size of a distance range surrounding the particular input control.

In addition to setting and adjusting of angle and distance information,the locations of various input controls may also be set or adjusted inresponse to various factors. For example, if it is determined thatcertain input controls are being used by younger players with smallerhands, then, in some cases, the locations of the input controls may beadjusted such that the input controls are positioned closer together. Bycontrast, if it is determined that certain input controls are being usedby older players with larger hands, then, in some cases, the locationsof the input controls may be adjusted such that the input controls arepositioned further apart.

In some cases, information associated with physical attributes anddemographics of users, information associated with the frequency and/orcontext of assignment of touches to various input controls and any otherinformation may be collected by various client touchscreen devices andsent via an electronic network to one or more servers and/or contentproviders. The servers and/or content providers may, for example,aggregate information collected from different client touchscreendevices and use the aggregated information to make or assist in makingvarious determinations about setting or adjusting angle and distanceinformation and/or input control locations. In some cases, thesedeterminations may be transmitted back to various client touchscreendevices, which may then implement the various determinations. Also, insome cases, logic may be provided on a client touchscreen device to makevarious determinations about setting or adjusting angle and distanceinformation and/or input control locations based on informationcollected by the device itself and/or other devices.

In some cases, various information associated with input controls andinput assignment techniques may be stored in a user profile associatedwith one or more users. For example, in some cases, a particular usermay choose to set or adjust various angle ranges and/or distance rangesspecified within the angle and distance information such that inputassignment is performed efficiently for the particular user.Additionally, in some cases, a particular user may arrange or rearrangevarious input control locations such that they are more comfortableand/or intuitive to the user. For example, a particular user may chooseto have input controls adjusted such that they are moved closer togetheror further apart as set forth above. Any or all of the adjustmentsdescribed above as well as other information may be stored in a userprofile. In some cases, user profiles may be stored on a client devicethat is commonly employed by the user. Also, in some cases, userprofiles may be stored on a content provider and/or server such that theuser profiles may be accessible on a number of different connectedclient devices.

Each of the processes, methods and algorithms described in the precedingsections may be embodied in, and fully or partially automated by, codemodules executed by one or more computers or computer processors. Thecode modules may be stored on any type of non-transitorycomputer-readable medium or computer storage device, such as harddrives, solid state memory, optical disc and/or the like. The processesand algorithms may be implemented partially or wholly inapplication-specific circuitry. The results of the disclosed processesand process steps may be stored, persistently or otherwise, in any typeof non-transitory computer storage such as, e.g., volatile ornon-volatile storage.

The various features and processes described above may be usedindependently of one another, or may be combined in various ways. Allpossible combinations and subcombinations are intended to fall withinthe scope of this disclosure. In addition, certain methods or processblocks may be omitted in some implementations. The methods and processesdescribed herein are also not limited to any particular sequence, andthe blocks or states relating thereto can be performed in othersequences that are appropriate. For example, described blocks or statesmay be performed in an order other than that specifically disclosed, ormultiple blocks or states may be combined in a single block or state.The example blocks or states may be performed in serial, in parallel orin some other manner. Blocks or states may be added to or removed fromthe disclosed example embodiments. The example systems and componentsdescribed herein may be configured differently than described. Forexample, elements may be added to, removed from or rearranged comparedto the disclosed example embodiments.

It will also be appreciated that various items are illustrated as beingstored in memory or on storage while being used, and that these items orportions thereof may be transferred between memory and other storagedevices for purposes of memory management and data integrity.Alternatively, in other embodiments some or all of the software modulesand/or systems may execute in memory on another device and communicatewith the illustrated computing systems via inter-computer communication.Furthermore, in some embodiments, some or all of the systems and/ormodules may be implemented or provided in other ways, such as at leastpartially in firmware and/or hardware, including, but not limited to,one or more application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), standardintegrated circuits, controllers (e.g., by executing appropriateinstructions, and including microcontrollers and/or embeddedcontrollers), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), complexprogrammable logic devices (CPLDs), etc. Some or all of the modules,systems and data structures may also be stored (e.g., as softwareinstructions or structured data) on a computer-readable medium, such asa hard disk, a memory, a network or a portable media article to be readby an appropriate drive or via an appropriate connection. The systems,modules and data structures may also be transmitted as generated datasignals (e.g., as part of a carrier wave or other analog or digitalpropagated signal) on a variety of computer-readable transmission media,including wireless-based and wired/cable-based media, and may take avariety of forms (e.g., as part of a single or multiplexed analogsignal, or as multiple discrete digital packets or frames). Suchcomputer program products may also take other forms in otherembodiments. Accordingly, the present invention may be practiced withother computer system configurations.

Conditional language used herein, such as, among others, “can,” “could,”“might,” “may,” “e.g.” and the like, unless specifically statedotherwise, or otherwise understood within the context as used, isgenerally intended to convey that certain embodiments include, whileother embodiments do not include, certain features, elements, and/orsteps. Thus, such conditional language is not generally intended toimply that features, elements and/or steps are in any way required forone or more embodiments or that one or more embodiments necessarilyinclude logic for deciding, with or without author input or prompting,whether these features, elements and/or steps are included or are to beperformed in any particular embodiment. The terms “comprising,”“including,” “having” and the like are synonymous and are usedinclusively, in an open-ended fashion, and do not exclude additionalelements, features, acts, operations and so forth. Also, the term “or”is used in its inclusive sense (and not in its exclusive sense) so thatwhen used, for example, to connect a list of elements, the term “or”means one, some or all of the elements in the list.

While certain example embodiments have been described, these embodimentshave been presented by way of example only and are not intended to limitthe scope of the inventions disclosed herein. Thus, nothing in theforegoing description is intended to imply that any particular feature,characteristic, step, module or block is necessary or indispensable.Indeed, the novel methods and systems described herein may be embodiedin a variety of other forms; furthermore, various omissions,substitutions and changes in the form of the methods and systemsdescribed herein may be made without departing from the spirit of theinventions disclosed herein. The accompanying claims and theirequivalents are intended to cover such forms or modifications as wouldfall within the scope and spirit of certain of the inventions disclosedherein.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: detecting a first touch at afirst screen location; assigning the first touch to a first inputcontrol; detecting a second touch at a second screen location; anddetermining an input control assignment for the second touch based, atleast in part, on an angle and a distance of the second screen locationrelative to the first screen location.
 2. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: calculating an angle and a distance of the second screenlocation relative to the first screen location; identifying a pluralityof distance ranges associated with the calculated angle, the pluralityof distance ranges comprising a first distance range and a seconddistance range; determining which one of the plurality of distanceranges includes the calculated distance; assigning the second touch tothe first input control when the first distance range includes thecalculated distance; and assigning the second touch to a second inputcontrol when the second distance range includes the calculated distance.3. The method of claim 2, wherein the plurality of distance rangesfurther comprises a third distance range, and wherein the second touchis not assigned to any input control when the third distance rangeincludes the calculated distance.
 4. The method of claim 2, whereinmaintained angle and distance information indicates a first range of oneor more angles that includes the calculated angle, and wherein themaintained angle and distance information further indicates that thefirst range of one or more angles is associated with the plurality ofdistance ranges.
 5. The method of claim 2, wherein assigning the firsttouch to the first input control comprises determining that the firstscreen location is closer to the first input control than to any otherinput control in a set of input controls that includes the first inputcontrol and the second input control.
 6. The method of claim 2, whereinat least one of the first distance range or the second distance range isadjusted, based at least in part, on a history of assignment of touchesto input controls.
 7. The method of claim 2, wherein at least one of thefirst distance range or the second distance range is adjusted, based atleast in part, on a physical characteristic of one or more users.
 8. Themethod of claim 2, wherein at least one of the first distance range orthe second distance range is adjusted, based at least in part, ondemographic information associated with one or more users.
 9. The methodof claim 2, wherein information indicating at least one of the firstdistance range or the second distance range is stored in a user profile.10. The method of claim 1, further comprising: determining that a resetcondition has occurred, wherein the reset condition causes a third touchdetected at a third screen location to be assigned to an input controlirrespective of an angle and distance of the third screen locationrelative to the second screen location.
 11. The method of claim 10,wherein occurrence of the reset condition is determined based at leastin part on a determination that the third screen location is greaterthan a particular distance from at least one of the first input controlor a second input control.
 12. The method of claim 11, wherein the resetcondition is one of reaching an expiration of a threshold time periodprior to detection of the third touch, a selection of a reset button, aperformance of a reset gesture, a spoken reset command or an event oraction occurring within a context of a video game.
 13. A systemcomprising: one or more processors one or more memories to store a setof instructions, which if executed by the one or more processors, causesthe one or more processors to perform operations comprising: detecting afirst touch at a first screen location; assigning the first touch to afirst input control; detecting a second touch at a second screenlocation; and determining an input control assignment for the secondtouch based, at least in part, on an angle and a distance of the secondscreen location relative to the first screen location.
 14. The system ofclaim 13, further comprising: calculating an angle and a distance of thesecond screen location relative to the first screen location;identifying a plurality of distance ranges associated with thecalculated angle, the plurality of distance ranges comprising a firstdistance range and a second distance range; determining which one of theplurality of distance ranges includes the calculated distance; assigningthe second touch to the first input control when the first distancerange includes the calculated distance; and assigning the second touchto a second input control when the second distance range includes thecalculated distance.
 15. The system of claim 14, wherein the pluralityof distance ranges further comprises a third distance range, and whereinthe second touch is not assigned to any input control when the thirddistance range includes the calculated distance.
 16. The system of claim14, wherein maintained angle and distance information indicates a firstrange of one or more angles that includes the calculated angle, andwherein the maintained angle and distance information further indicatesthat the first range of one or more angles is associated with theplurality of distance ranges.
 17. The system of claim 14, whereinassigning the first touch to the first input control comprisesdetermining that the first screen location is closer to the first inputcontrol than to any other input control in a set of input controls thatincludes the first input control and the second input control.
 18. Thesystem of claim 14, wherein at least one of the first distance range orthe second distance range is adjusted, based at least in part, on aphysical characteristic of one or more users.
 19. The system of claim14, wherein at least one of the first distance range or the seconddistance range is adjusted, based at least in part, on demographicinformation associated with one or more users.
 20. A non-transitorycomputer-readable medium having stored thereon a set of instructions,which if performed by one or more processors, causes the one or moreprocessors to perform operations comprising: detecting a first touch ata first screen location; assigning the first touch to a first inputcontrol; detecting a second touch at a second screen location; anddetermining an input control assignment for the second touch based, atleast in part, on an angle and a distance of the second screen locationrelative to the first screen location.